MAD MEN on AMC - Seasons 7(a) & & 7(b)

if anyone expects the final season is gonna be tying up loose ends i think they've maybe been watching a different show all this time?

― ryan, Monday, April 13, 2015 3:33 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

if anyone expects the final season is gonna be tying up loose ends i think they've maybe been watching a different show all this time?

Disagree here. I don't necessarily mean neatly, but I think there will be some indication of what lies ahead for many/most of the major characters. And for Don, I think they'll be something either clearly positive (some kind of acceptance) or clearly negative. If that wasn't done in the first seven-and-a-half seasons, well, why would you? You save that for the end.

it's possible! i just think the general philosophical outlook of the show is different, living in the "not knowing" and all that. maybe a better way to put it is that this is not a show that tends to "resolve" things so much as watch them go in circles. this does pose a dilemma for an ending...

I think back to Six Feet Under (admittedly, my frame of reference for these recent long-running shows is narrow), and that was also a show where certain characters seemed to make the same mistakes over and over again, and it seemed like maybe nothing would ever be resolved, but in the final episode, there was closure of sorts.

Anyway, at the very least, have them show up? Have Sally actually in the episodes?

ugh the last season of 6 feet under was so horrible

Not to sidetrack, but didn't you at least find the ending of the last episode satisfying? (Questionable make-up aside...)

you mean with all the white ghosts and shit? i have to say i found it corny. my cuz loved it. they did something similar for Desperate Housewives and i was OK with it.

i just remember the season at large being soooooo heavy/intense, and HBO oft has a problem with endings.

in terms of An Ending That Resolves Everything, 6 feet under is prob the gold standard, whether or not that's a good thing for most shows is entirely another matter

I don't want to get tagged with the idea that everything has to be explained/resolved perfectly. In terms of movies, I generally prefer odd non-endings, like in Boyhood. But here, I do want some kind of reckoning, or awareness, or something at the end. And if it fits, if the message is that Roger will continue being Roger till the day he dies--and that would be one character where I'm sure that's the last stop--that's okay too. But I want more for Joan, Peggy, Betty, Sally, and, yes, Don.

i'd say you'll prob get relatively complete endings for joan, peggy and sally. especially peggy, bc weiner clearly adores her too much to drop her into some sort of abyss at the end...i think. unless he wants peggy to truly be nu-don, then it might be sadder.

however don ends up i think it will be the most oblique of all the characters' destinations.

It's all creepy Glen's dream.

creepy glen will prob get an actual concrete ending bc that's matt weiner's scion

i feel like every season we go through the 5 stages of grief where everyone has to re-acclimate themselves to how the show has already been for 7 seasons .

this definitely seems true. go back and read response posts to the openings for s5-7 for example. most recently there were loads of complaints about the Lindsey Weir plotline but that totally paid off imo

Molly Lambert's take.

I want an American Graffiti epilogue that tells us what they're all doing right now. (Except for the ones who are dead.) Like, does Harry have a blog?

xp maaannnnn that reminds me that season 6 ended up having a really powerful conclusion but it may have been the grimmest, most miserable slog of all the seasons. not to mention had some legitimately bad episodes, which i dont think any other season has.

(shoulda been xxp)

Oh...."The Manson Brothers"..... so funny!

The Manson Brothers...Available Exclusively On Paramount Records

omg that WAS funny

Don's timing delivery was perfect

If Weiner goes the American Graffiti route, we'll find out what happens to Don, Roger, Pete, Harry, and Ken; the women will completely vanish.

Betty goes to work for Phyllis Schlafly against the ERA

Gene starts a No Wave band

One thing I have always expected to happen--have been waiting for it to happen--is that one of the four main women (I'm not counting Megan) becomes fully radicalized. Early on, I would have expected Betty (the great shooting-birds ending; that never really developed); at times, Peggy or Joan; more recently, Sally. I still think it will happen with one of them. What form that will take, I'm not sure.

Reading a review, was reminded of another line I liked last night: the "NAC" concept ("He's blotto after 12:00").

sally would make the most sense. peggy could as well if she ever manages to shake those last nagging vestiges of catholic guilt and inherent conservatism. joan also a possibility but i think she also might view politics as a thing she doesn't have time for, being the mother of a small child. betty...well, isn't smart or self-aware enough (while also not being as stupid as either of her husbands think), and the politics she soaks up from henry francis/his cronies are pretty hard right.

oh lol i see shakey's phyllis schlafly ref...which is a kind of radicalism? i s'pose?

Joan's got a pretty unhappy future ahead of her imo

Hadn't considered that--wasn't even referring to the Schafly post--but yes, I guess it is. I of course meant from the left: an ERA proponent would be at the mildest end of the spectrum, something much more, probably. (Reminding me of Peggy's lesbian friend from the first couple of seasons, one of the most interesting characters to disappear.)

http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/mad-men-recap-season-7-episode-9.html

There have been other partially radical women at the edges: Midge, the neighbor of Betty's who was scorned early on because of her divorce (and who didn't really seem to care), etc.

"and the politics she soaks up from henry francis/his cronies are pretty hard right"

Wait what? She seems as much if not more conservative than Francis is.

yeah he Francis got on her for being even more rabidly pro-war than he was iirc

Every time I read one of those interesting, well-written post-show analyses like the Vulture one--I've read about four today--I immediately start second-guessing myself about how impatient I was with the first two episodes (the Vulture writer even specifically makes reference to viewers like me--he's got me figured out...). The first two make for better reading than viewing.

hard to work for Governor Rockefeller and be hard right

i thought this was a great episode but i like the moody doomed-romance-y ones. still not sure why Megan and Marie are in such a bad mood with Don? anyone? i wonder if the fact that a) she's pissed off with Don and b) she knows Don is Dick, will somehow come back to haunt him/us.

best new expression learned this week; "N.A.C.; no afternoon calls".

Well, I would say that Megan arriving back from a cheesy attempted-seduction lunch to find her mother has a) cleaned the apartment right out and b) has been shagging Roger for HOW LONG after believing she was not unfaithful even in a shitty marriage and that her mud hen of a sister is most worried about explaining this whole thing to her kids, would probably laser-focus her into thinking Don was the wrong turn responsible for her life not lived and the unravelling of her own family when Maman leaves Papa for Don's associate.

yeah i figured megan was directing a day's worth of anger over shitty events at don, fair or not

mmhm makes sense. did Megan not know about Roger and Marie? damned if i can remember.

I don't think it's all that out of the question for a married couple to part ways "amicably" and then once the divorce papers and lawyers start getting involved civility gets thrown out the windows and they get frustrated and start to take it out on the ones they love(d).

I'm finding it harder to believe Don actually has a million dollars in cash just sitting in a bank.

If Joan's 5% of the company was worth over a mil, Don's share is substantially more. Even with some of it tied up in the deal, he's probably sitting on some cash.

xp and not just that but that he was a millionaire when they met?! how did that happen? so many questions.

Maybe that is just Don's life, falling ass-backwards into women and money.

Megan looked so fineeeee in that blue barely dress thing

this was the worst thing in the whole episode

I found Don's cheque a bit of a stretch. I know he's a millionaire, but how much of that would be liquid in 1970? One million must represent a substantial part of his liquid assets. Nitpicking, I know--it was the meaning of the gesture that was important.

Don is millionaire many times over.

There was that article a few months back:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/mad-men-how-much-did-each-of-the-partners-make.html

"That would mean each owns 15 percent of SC&P, which would make their takes $4,972,500 each."

I don't know--that just doesn't seem rich enough to hand over a million in cash.

A million in 1970 wasn't chicken feed -- that's when a million bucks meant something.

Except Don was rich before they sold out to McCann. He wrote a $250k like it was nothing.